AMITE, LA – Nobody spoke an objection or raised a concern at the latest meeting of the Tangipahoa Parish Council, which included a unanimous vote to adopt a new, 26-page sexually oriented business ordinance crafted by the conservative Christian group the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). Just last month, the scene at the council meeting was a very different one, according to the Baton Rouge-based newspaper The Advocate.
Passage of the new ordinance follows a public outcry of concern at last month’s council meeting, when local residents were up in arms over the possibility that a business under construction off I-55 near Ponchatoula, LA may be planning to sell adult videos.
According to the Advocate, more than 100 residents, including members of the Christian Community Network, attended the October 10th meeting of the council to demand that it do something to “stop sexually oriented businesses.”
The November 13th meeting, on the other hand, was a more docile affair, with approximately a dozen supporters of the new ordinance attending to praise the council for its decision.
The ordinance, which is effective immediately, will affect only one adult business currently open within the parish, as the other two adult businesses within Tangipahoa Parish lie within municipal areas, and are subject to the codes of their respective municipal governments.
“What the courts have said is a local governing body can regulate non-obscene sexually oriented speech,” said ADF attorney Mike Johnson.
Although Johnson conceded that “no court says a municipality has the right to shut down a business,” adding that the intent is to “reduce the negative effects” of adult businesses.
After the council’s vote, Parish President Gordon Burgess called for the council to also adopt a resolution encouraging municipalities in the Parish to do likewise, and the Council did adopt such a resolution.
As reported by the Advocate, the ordinance contains a wide variety of provisions, including:
• Each person with a “controlling interest” in a sexually oriented business, and each employee of such a business, must apply to the sheriff for a sexually oriented business (SOB) license; the price of the SOB license ranges from $100 to $1,000.
• Employees and operators of SOB’s may not have outstanding warrants for, be convicted of, or have pleaded guilty or nolo contendre to “certain crimes.”
• SOBs must close between 10:00 pm and 10:00 am Monday through Saturday, and SOBs may not have business hours on Sunday.
• SOBs that offer viewing rooms must limit occupancy of such rooms to one person at a time, must equip such rooms with “nonporous flooring and furniture,” and clean such viewing rooms at least twice a day.
Johnson asserted that the ordinance would withstand a court challenge because the council is not restricting the content of the products being sold; instead the ordinance regulates how the businesses operate, during which hours they can operate, and requires certain “design elements” to be added to the buildings that house such businesses.
